A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of
birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not
immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence
contributes to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate
them.

I'm not sure I can say I'm working *with* nature, at least as far as
plants are concerned. I've just added 8 washing basket loads of Geum
urbanum to the compost heap. And I do tend to sacrifice their needs to
the needs of the various herbivores.

But where I *am* working with nature is that I know what my soil
conditions are and my weather conditions, and I grow plants which will
like those conditions, rather than going to immense lengths to cosset a
plant into survival in a habitat where it would rather not be. That
gives me an immense amount of pleasure - to plant a plant, and watch it
flourish all by its own efforts. Rather like introducing a child to a
new interest, and watching it grow in knowledge, ability and enthusiasm
all through its own work.


--
Kay

Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote:
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as
just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the
creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a
tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything
which is growing where you don't want it too?

So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am
just madly in love with nature full stop.

Gail :-)

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:59:20 +0100, tom&barbara wrote
(in message .com):

I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as
just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the
creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a
tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything
which is growing where you don't want it too?

So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am
just madly in love with nature full stop.

Gail :-)

I'm pulling out a lot of weeds now and some of them might actually be nice
things to let grow- if only I knew which ones they were. For example I'm
pulling out a lot of clover lately and I have it in the back of my mind
somewhere that it is a fairly benign plant. Could be wrong about that though.

What would be really useful is a book or web page that informs about wild
flowers and -most importantly- shows which ones would be tame enough to keep.
I don't suppose there is such a book or web site in existence....?

--
VX (remove alcohol for email)

"tom&barbara" wrote in message
oups.com...

Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote:
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling
it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like
it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected
to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as
just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the
creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a
tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything
which is growing where you don't want it too?

So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am
just madly in love with nature full stop.

Gail :-)


I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely.
I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as
thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it .
Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like
some Sasa Bamboo:-)

K wrote:
"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of
birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not
immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence
contributes to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate
them.


Heh - I'll go one better. We've got a brown rat who lives under the
water butt. My husband is immensely fond of him and has named him Mr
Rat, and we all seem to live together quite happily; it's a good thing
our cats aren't allowed outdoors.

You can't really avoid rats living in the country. We've got a farm
next door, so in season the fields are full of corn, and out of season
our neighbours' chickens are being fed lots of nutritious grain. Along
with the bird food and the leavings from the pub on the other side of
our house, I suspect Mr Rat has a more varied and interesting diet than
I do.

--
www.gastronomydomine.com

So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am
just madly in love with nature full stop.


I'm *largely* the same...unfortunately, one of our beds is full of
ground elder. No chemicals are wicked enough for ground elder. If I
could sell my soul to be rid of the stuff, I'd happily do so.

--
www.gastronomydomine.com

"K" wrote in message
...
"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes
A previous thread had the guts of a good discussion on people's different
opinions on whether we gardeners are working with Nature or controlling
it.
My Garden is for my pleasure and that fact that the birds and bees like it
is a bye product. I do think that the weeds feel they have been subjected
to
unfair control and claim I am not working with Nature.

Ah. Now my pleasure in my garden is greatly increased by the presence of
birds, bees, damsel flies, frogs, newts, bats. And while I am not
immediately enthused by aphids and bugs, I know their presence contributes
to the number of birds, bats, frogs etc, and so I tolerate them.

Agreed. I too like the wildlife but I do not knowingly do anything to
encourage them .

I'm not sure I can say I'm working *with* nature, at least as far as
plants are concerned. I've just added 8 washing basket loads of Geum
urbanum to the compost heap. And I do tend to sacrifice their needs to the
needs of the various herbivores.

There's someone I can admire. Bugga the laundry. Let's use the basket for
gardening.

But where I *am* working with nature is that I know what my soil
conditions are and my weather conditions, and I grow plants which will
like those conditions, rather than going to immense lengths to cosset a
plant into survival in a habitat where it would rather not be. That gives
me an immense amount of pleasure - to plant a plant, and watch it flourish
all by its own efforts. Rather like introducing a child to a new interest,
and watching it grow in knowledge, ability and enthusiasm all through its
own work.


Again that's a me too with a but...
I do like to have a crack at growing stuff that is perhaps on the borderline
of what the W. Yorks climate will permit. I mean the sort of things that
some of the "Southern bedwetters" talk about:-)

FWIW I do think we exercise a strong degree of control by just being a
gardener.


--
Kay

I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely.
I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as
thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it .
Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like
some Sasa Bamboo:-)

Just had a good giggle at image of you up to your neck in Borage Rupert
:-) I have Borage growing all over the garden and I love it, it's so
pretty and always looks good in the jug of Pimms I like to enjoy on a
hot day. Haven't got any Comfrey though?

Emmm...off to google it and see if it's pretty.

Gail :-)

VX writes
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:59:20 +0100, tom&barbara wrote
(in message .com):

I leave quite a few ' weeds' to grow in my garden because I see them as
just wild flowers. Don't know the name of some of them but one is the
creeping buttercup. I have another yellow flowering wild plant and a
tall pink one, also some huge daisies. Anyway isn't a weed anything
which is growing where you don't want it too?

So long as it flowers it is pretty safe in my garden Rupert :-) I am
just madly in love with nature full stop.

Gail :-)

I'm pulling out a lot of weeds now and some of them might actually be nice
things to let grow- if only I knew which ones they were. For example I'm
pulling out a lot of clover lately and I have it in the back of my mind
somewhere that it is a fairly benign plant. Could be wrong about that though.

What would be really useful is a book or web page that informs about wild
flowers and -most importantly- shows which ones would be tame enough to keep.
I don't suppose there is such a book or web site in existence....?

Tame depends a bit on where you are. For example, people pay good money
for Alchemilla mollis and struggle to keep it in their gardens, while
others of us pull it out by the dustbin-load.

A good few of the things that aren't tame enough to keep are in fact
introduced plants which started off as garden plants (although some have
now escaped into the wild) - Russian Vine, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan
Balsam, Boston Ivy, Crassula helmsii. There are few really horrible
natives - dandelion, bindweed, couch grass, horsetail and ground elder,
and that's about it. Oh, and rosebay willowherb, but that's introduced.
--
Kay

"tom&barbara" wrote in message
oups.com...

I took a liking to Borage and allowed it to seed freely.
I spent several hours today digging out just a few plants with roots as
thick as my arm. Bloody stuff I *shall* control it .
Would you like a few seeds of Borage or Comfrey, perchance you might like
some Sasa Bamboo:-)

Just had a good giggle at image of you up to your neck in Borage Rupert
:-) I have Borage growing all over the garden and I love it, it's so
pretty and always looks good in the jug of Pimms I like to enjoy on a
hot day. Haven't got any Comfrey though?

Emmm...off to google it and see if it's pretty.

Gail :-)


Well I hope you are feeling "broody" :-)
"An infusion of borage acts as a galactogogue, promoting the production of
milk in breastfeeding mothers"
http://www.gardenguides.com/herbs/borage.htm

On 13/6/06 23:34, in article , "K"
wrote:
snip

Tame depends a bit on where you are. For example, people pay good money
for Alchemilla mollis and struggle to keep it in their gardens, while
others of us pull it out by the dustbin-load.

A good few of the things that aren't tame enough to keep are in fact
introduced plants which started off as garden plants (although some have
now escaped into the wild) - Russian Vine, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan
Balsam, Boston Ivy, Crassula helmsii. There are few really horrible
natives - dandelion, bindweed, couch grass, horsetail and ground elder,
and that's about it. Oh, and rosebay willowherb, but that's introduced.

What is that very tall yellow flowered wild flower that we see in hedgerows
here? The stems really are very long and it reminds me just a bit of Crambe
cordifolia, except for the colour, of course!
We allow a certain amount of Black Bryony to survive now that we know
blackbirds like it and I love the colour of red campion which, here, tends
to be a very bright pink so patches of that stay put. There are several
corners of the garden and the back field which are wildlife friendly but the
thing we can't do here is have a real 'let it go' wild flower meadow because
of the nursery plants that stand outside all year round.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(email address on website)

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote
FWIW I do think we exercise a strong degree of control by just being a
gardener.

I agree with that. You can try to go along with nature, but only up to a
point.

Although I call the area down at the end of our plot the 'Wild Garden'
and let the grass grown long and the wild flowers seed around, it's
still managed and not really wild. Some plants turn up on their own and
are welcome (except the marestail), but if I didn't step in and enforce
a bit of order now and then it'd all revert to scrub in no time. For a
start I'd soon be overrun with sycamore blowing in from next door,
brambles introduced by birds and oak saplings from acorns planted by
squirrels and jays.

--
Sue

Sue wrote:
I agree with that. You can try to go along with nature, but only up to a
point.
Although I call the area down at the end of our plot the 'Wild Garden'
and let the grass grown long and the wild flowers seed around, it's
still managed and not really wild. Some plants turn up on their own and
are welcome (except the marestail), but if I didn't step in and enforce
a bit of order now and then it'd all revert to scrub in no time. For a
start I'd soon be overrun with sycamore blowing in from next door,
brambles introduced by birds and oak saplings from acorns planted by
squirrels and jays.

That's when you introduce chickens! They are great at eating pests,
seeds and fantastic at scratching the soil to a wonderful fine tilth,
manuring as they go along, ready in no time for you to plant a crop )

but I DO recall that they were
speedily confined to their pen again.
--
Sacha


'controlled' :-((

Mike


--
------------------------------------------------
Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association
www.rnshipmates.co.uk
International Festival of the Sea 28th June - 1st July 2007